GStwin.com GS500 Message Forum

Hey guys and gals.  I am bringing forth my services as a Professional in the Graphics Design field, to anyone who would like to see what their bike would look like with something changed.
• change color

• remove items  ;)
• add items  O0

• modify for computer wallpaper  :icon_twisted:

• anything you can think of   :dunno_white:  (mostly)

Of course I can't do this for free, but I am offering this service at a much reduced rate than what it's worth

Just personal message me, and we'll get things going

I am capable of doing most things, but the more drastic, the more it will cost.  However, I am always willing to bargain. 

Pricing...  (describe what you want, and I'll give an estimate - multiple changes will increase cost)
• Minimal Changes - $2-$5 dollars (15 minutes of work) - see 'Joe's Cafe' picture below
   - single color change
   - resizing
   - cropping
• Moderate Changes - $5-$7 dollars (30-45 minutes of work)
   - multiple color changes
   - isolation from background
• Difficult Changes - $7-$15 dollars (45-1.5 hours of work) - see blue naked, to green faired below
   - adding parts
   - subtracting parts
• Extreme Changes - $15 and up (1.5 and up of work)
   - any extreme manipulations



Additional Info
• All payments will be through PAYPAL (http://www.paypal.com)
• I can either use a picture you supply me, or one I find from the internet.
• Adding Chrome to something, 99% of the time is not possible, unless you supply a photo of an item to replace.
• I will also work on any subject matter...doesn't have to pertain to bikes.
• I'll do Adobe Illustrator work as well.



Original (Blue)
Modified (Green) - Changed to green, added fairing, removed stock mirrors, lowered handlebars, removed mud guard and other rear mess
(http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z307/quiktaco/Original1-1.jpg) (http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z307/quiktaco/Modified1-1.jpg)

Original (Color)
Modified (Sepia) - Changed to Sepia tones, Adjusted Brightness and Contrast, added an 8mm film look with dark edges
(http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z307/quiktaco/joescafecolor-1.jpg) (http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z307/quiktaco/joescafesepia-1.jpg)

how about a price for a couple of HDR blends ? i have nice photos, but SUCK at hdr blending/pano's.

:) tanx

INforsamples

i am sending you a pm. i definitely want to see this.

this is going to be a very interesting post (I have nothing to say - I just want to be notified about new entries  :icon_mrgreen: )

that a great idea by the way!! and smart way to get thru tough economic times  :thumb:

Quote from: ohgood on November 18, 2008, 06:20:17 PM
how about a price for a couple of HDR blends ? i have nice photos, but SUCK at hdr blending/pano's.

:) tanx

Yeah, that's no problem as long as I've got descent images to work from.  Don't know price, you tell me what you think is fair.  I really have no idea what to charge for anything.

Even if it doesn't have anything to do with bikes, I'm willing to help out with any photoshop needs.

Please give suggestions what you think is a fair price to charge for this type of thing.  Even if you aren't really interested, I'd still like the feedback. Thanks

Quote from: quiktaco on November 19, 2008, 09:40:07 AM

Quote from: ohgood on November 18, 2008, 06:20:17 PM
how about a price for a couple of HDR blends ? i have nice photos, but SUCK at hdr blending/pano's.

:) tanx

Yeah, that's no problem as long as I've got descent images to work from.  Don't know price, you tell me what you think is fair.  I really have no idea what to charge for anything.

Even if it doesn't have anything to do with bikes, I'm willing to help out with any photoshop needs.

cool. i'll upload a few different exposure levels to flickr this afternoon. my connection is so slow upstream it might take an hour ;)

have you seen the "you suck at photoshop" bits on youtube ? it's good entertainment, and he knows his photochopping too ! (language not safe for work :( )

Quote from: ohgood on November 20, 2008, 05:00:01 AM

Quote from: quiktaco on November 19, 2008, 09:40:07 AM

Quote from: ohgood on November 18, 2008, 06:20:17 PM
how about a price for a couple of HDR blends ? i have nice photos, but SUCK at hdr blending/pano's.

:) tanx

Yeah, that's no problem as long as I've got descent images to work from.  Don't know price, you tell me what you think is fair.  I really have no idea what to charge for anything.

Even if it doesn't have anything to do with bikes, I'm willing to help out with any photoshop needs.

cool. i'll upload a few different exposure levels to flickr this afternoon. my connection is so slow upstream it might take an hour ;)

have you seen the "you suck at photoshop" bits on youtube ? it's good entertainment, and he knows his photochopping too ! (language not safe for work :( )

Dude, that button right there is forbidden.  That is only like $15 worth of photoshop, today i am going to teach you how to use at least $200 worth of photoshop  :laugh: :laugh:

Quote from: ohgood on November 20, 2008, 05:00:01 AM
have you seen the "you suck at photoshop" bits on youtube ? it's good entertainment, and he knows his photochopping too ! (language not safe for work :( )

Never had, but I just finished watching all of them.  He is pretty good.  I have approaches that vary some from his for certain things, but whatever gets the desired effect in the end.  And his one about using paths to cut things out...I hate, and never use paths.   I feel it doesn't give a natural look to things.  But to each his own.

BTW - a little teaser for what I'm working on for my other sample (extreme mod).  It's a part GS, part Monster, part Buell, and if anyone has some other ideas to throw in there, I'm open to them.

And also, if anyone has Adobe Illustrator work that they want done, I'm even better with Illustrator than Photoshop.  And yes, for those of you who are like, 'huh? What's Illustrator?', yes it's a program too.  :)

Anyone have suggestion on what to charge?  Even if you aren't going to use this, what is your opinion on what would be fair?

Man this sounds like my sr project from college...  take unit a crop, photoshop, and whola you have a new airplane!

Anyways, I would suggest you charge sort of based on time it takes you/nominally by the hour.  Like decide your time is worth $20 or so and then if changing the color only takes you 5 min charge (5/60)*$20 ~ $1.6.  As to what an actual graphic artist's time is worth I dunno, but I'd do couple of each sort of thing you're thinking about to get a good estimate of how much time it'll take you.

That all said, I would hope this is more of a labor of love than to profit driven cause there's probably better ways to make money.  (like photoshopping celebrity A's face on to pr0n star B's body or some such nonsense although maybe jessica alba would be a major modification to add to my bike...)

I used his service.  Pretty nice actually. I wanted to see how my rim would look like powdercoated blue and seat turned blue and white and racing pegs.  Looks good to me.. so now i spend money on making it happen.

here is the before

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/maishani/nobkground.jpg)

and here is the Final

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/maishani/BlueHaze-2ndround.jpg)

Quote from: PachmanP on November 24, 2008, 05:20:45 PM
Man this sounds like my sr project from college...  take unit a crop, photoshop, and whola you have a new airplane!

Anyways, I would suggest you charge sort of based on time it takes you/nominally by the hour.  Like decide your time is worth $20 or so and then if changing the color only takes you 5 min charge (5/60)*$20 ~ $1.6.  As to what an actual graphic artist's time is worth I dunno, but I'd do couple of each sort of thing you're thinking about to get a good estimate of how much time it'll take you.

That all said, I would hope this is more of a labor of love than to profit driven cause there's probably better ways to make money.  (like photoshopping celebrity A's face on to pr0n star B's body or some such nonsense although maybe jessica alba would be a major modification to add to my bike...)

My time is worth about that, per my job.  I am considering this more of a labor of love, especially since no one here would probably pay me that.  I love working in photoshop and illustrator, so it's not really something to make tons of money with here.  It's more like, I can help someone out, and at the same time, bring in a little extra money per month to pay for diapers for my daughter.

Any other suggestions on pricing for this?

^^ Forgot to insert quote... but anyway. ^^

I would agree in trying to map out a time/price ratio.

Something like cropping, re-sizing, and a color change takes all of 15-20 minutes if you're good. (which you obviously are)

So it'd be kinda pointless to charge 20 bucks an hour.

Otherwise, something like a complete isolation of an item, color change, mix and matching of parts, chops and cuts, then a filter, border, extra graphic and text... that might take upwards of an hour and a half to do it right.

I would say time yourself on the quickest and longest operations you've been requested to do and then come up with a price from there.

Probably anything 1/2 hour under, 5-15 bucks... 1/2 hour to hour, 15-30 bucks... hour plus, 30 an hour and go from there.

So you'd end up with
15 mins - 5 dollars
30 mins - 15 dollars
45 mins - 25 dollars
60 mins - 30 dollars
120 mins - 60.. etc. etc.

But it's all up to you. Just having written this I feel as if that'd be too expensive.. lol, but I don't know the going rates for photoshop mods.

Dan

Thanks for the suggestion.  That's about the lines that I was thinking, but like your last comment, it does seem to be too expensive.  It would be fair out in the world, but I want to help everyone here out.  I think I may take your formula and figure out what would be fair to charge.

Quote from: Bluehaze on November 24, 2008, 09:42:08 PM

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/maishani/BlueHaze-2ndround.jpg)

so, if you desided you wanted your seat to look like that, how would you get it done? can you just send it to an upholstery place and they do it for you?

I guess so...I was just commissions to photochop it.  I'm sure if you gave your seat to an upholster, they'd easily be able to do it.

yeah i will either do it myself.. yea right.. or i will get an upholster person to do it. i already got a qoute of $200 so this might not come to fruition anytime soon.

White Rims?

(http://pictures.topspeed.com/motorcycles/motorcycle-reviews/suzuki/2007-suzuki-gs500f-ar16806/IMG/crop/200611/2007-suzuki-gs500f_1024x0w.jpg)

sorry man, i just dont think theres a market for this. it is VERY easy for someone to do it them selves, and if they dont know how, then either they can find a free tutorial online that tells them how to do it, or they probably have a friend that can do it. heres my bike. i changed some stuff just for the heck of it

Before

(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c86/HPI_Freak/DSC01405-1.jpg)

After

(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c86/HPI_Freak/DSC01405copy.jpg)

changed front turn signals to flush, chopped rear ones. tinted front headlight, painted engine black, polished up frame, gold brake rotors and chain,  chrome bar ends, and i couldnt really find anything i liked for the seat. id just keep it stock. as for charging people for time, this took me about 5 minutes to do, i just rushed it to use as an example to show how easy it is to do.

Yes, it is something that people can do, but not to the extent, and with the professionalism in the details that would come from someone like me...and no offense, but I think that is evident in your examples.  I realize that many people can do, or can have someone they know do this type of thing, but many people may not have the ability, or the programs, or even the time to do this type of thing.  That is where I can help.

So far, it looks like there's 10 people according to the poll that will at some point use my services.  I expected there to be many more than that who would not, as with most any service that is offered.  So it does seem that there is a market for this.  Thank you for your comments.

i went to college for graphic arts. we mostly used illustrator, but we used photoshop too. the unprofessionalism that is "evident" in my example is because it is not a job that i am being paid for and i wipped it up in about 5 minutes. speed and lazyness are what you are seeing, not lack of professionalizm. i have about 8 years of photoshop experiance, and i have been spending about half of that time looking for a job using photoshop. like i said before, this "job" is just not practical because its too easy to do it your self. i bet about 90% of the people that polled that they would use your service would only use it if it cost less than $5 for a total overhaul. not worth the time to money ratio.

if you want to get a job using photoshop, your best bet would be to do things like you did with that cafe racer photo. still stupid easy, but some people dont have the knowledge or resources or even time to do it them self and actually need it for businesses.

I didn't mean any disrespect.  I understand that the example was a quick reference, but I felt, that to prove a point on your end, you could have done a better job.

I'm not doing this to make a bank-load of money.  I went to school for Graphic Design as well...graduated from Long Beach state.  I have a full time job working 45 hours a week working with 75% Illustrator and 25% Photoshop.  The company is called Quiksilver...probably have heard of it.  It's one of the largest Surf companies in the world.

Like I've said, I want to help everyone out here.  Is it worth my time on a money making standpoint, no.  But do I enjoy it, and want to do it, yes.

I don't think you are right HPI Freak. Even though I'm good with computers (majoring computer systems) I wouldn't be able to do those mods in Photoshop without spending few hours watching or reading online tutorials. It seems easy for you cause you have 8 years of experience and went to school for that.
I don't think that most people can write computer programs without, at least, reading some tutorials, or paint or fix cars or do accounting or build furniture or whatever you think of. If you can do all of those things then good for you, but for most people it would take too much time and effort to learn all of those things.

That's why those kind of people would use quiktaco's service and pay him small fee. In addition he never said that he was looking for a job on GS Twins, he just offered help for those who, like myself, don't want to waste time learning what other people have already learned.

cheers
KaMeL

It's also worth considering that there are people out there who don't use pirated software and the cost of purchasing Photoshop or other editing software would make it considerably cheaper to use quiktaco's services as compared to buying software they may have little use for otherwise.

I'VE JUST CUT MY PRICES IN HALF!!!

Dude, do it yourself it is so easy....I was intimidated by it at first but my buddy and I ended up doing the whole inside of his 70 Nova...it was easy as hell if you have the frame.  Also, you can change the foam out for something more a$$ friendly.

Quote from: Farakin on February 07, 2009, 01:56:14 PM
Dude, do it yourself it is so easy....I was intimidated by it at first but my buddy and I ended up doing the whole inside of his 70 Nova...it was easy as hell if you have the frame.  Also, you can change the foam out for something more a$$ friendly.

Let's keep this thread on topic please.